Petrol selling at less than $1 a litre in Melbourne

Beau Donelly
January 20, 2015
The Age
Motorists can fill up for less than $1 a litre after unleaded petrol prices plunged to a six-year low in Melbourne.
Unleaded petrol is being sold from a BP station in Footscray for 99.9 cents a litre. The station, on the corner of Napier and Whitehall Streets, dropped the price on Tuesday.
Nearby service stations in West Melbourne and Yarraville are selling petrol for between 104.7 and 105.5 cents a litre.
RACV fuel spokesman Michael Case said it was the first time unleaded petrol had dipped below $1 a litre in Melbourne since 2009.
“Today’s price is the lowest we’ve seen in six years,” he said. “It went just beneath a dollar at the beginning of January 2009.”
The next lowest price for unleaded petrol in Melbourne is $100.5 cents a litre at a Craigieburn Caltex on the Hume Highway, according to price comparison website Motor Mouth. The average price of petrol on Tuesday was 106.4 cents a litre.
Petrol prices have plummeted from more than $1.50 a litre since last year as the global price oil halved from more than $100 a barrel to less than $50.
Mr Case said while drivers would continue to save at the bowser, it was impossible to predict how low petrol prices would drop.
“It’s has just been going down, down,” he said. “We’re now in our fourth month of continual decreases of retail fuel prices. We don’t see any short term change to that trend.”
BP has been contacted for comment.